Contracts will shortly be signed for the management schemes for the region’s three emblematic beaches – Balos, Falassarna and Elafonisi – following Ministerial Decisions issued over a year ago. Signing will take place on 27th February in Kissamos, with those involved including representatives of the Environment ministry, the Region of Crete, the Natural Environment and Climate Change Agency (NECCA), the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR), the municipalities of Kissamos and Kandanos-Selino and others. With the signature of the management plan by all the participants, the sum of €1.5 million will be made available for works to protect the three areas.
Continue readingTag Archives: Balos
New status for Chania beaches
A number of Chania’s beaches have been given the status of “Untouched Beaches” following a Joint Ministerial Decision by the ministers of Finance Kostis Hatzidakis and Environment and Energy Thodoros Skylakakis. The decision relates to the beaches stretching from Chrysoskalitissa to the Krios peninsula, all the beaches belonging to the coastal zone of Lefka Ori, the islands of Imeri Gramvousa and Agria Gramvousa, Tigani Balos beach and parts of Falassarna, Pontikonisi island, Livadi and Vigla Bay (Kissamos), the north-eastern beaches near Drapanos (Apokoronas), parts of Georgioupolis beach, Lake Kournas, and Psimaki Cave (also in Apokoronas).
Continue readingSites for civil weddings in Kissamos
By order of the mayor Giorgos Mylonakis, the Municipality of Kissamos has published details of the timetables and locations for civil weddings which may be held in the municipality in the coming year.
Continue readingProtection for vulnerable areas of natural beauty
Nowhere are the dangers of hyper-tourism more evident than at some of the most iconic sites of natural beauty in Crete. Common problems are overcrowding, especially in high summer, uncontrolled car parking, litter and the general degradation of environmentally vulnerable ecosystems through the sheer pressure of human activity. Gradually, local authorities are waking up to the fact that allowing the degradation of tourist attractions through over-use is not a recipe for long-term success, and taking measures to manage the situation.
Continue readingA solution to car parking at Balos
The popularity of Balos as a destination for tourists has for many years been a source of problems. The sheer volume of visitors, apart from degrading the attractions of the beach itself, has resulted in severe congestion around the inadequate parking space at the end of the Gramvousa peninsula, from which once can make the descent to the beach by foot. A recent satellite shot from Google Maps, obviously taken on a summer’s evening, shows a line of cars parked at the roadside reaching 1.3 km back from the parking area.
The solution of closing the dirt road up the peninsula to cars and providing a minibus service to make the journey was mooted quite a few years ago, but little had been heard of it recently. However, it is encouraging to know that the matter has not dropped entirely off the local authority’s radar: the municipality of Kissamos is shortly to issue a tender for the creation of a car park at Kaliviani at the bottom of the peninsula, where there is already a ticket station charging 1 euro for admission to the road up the peninsula.
The online competitive tender, for a total of 321,767 euros ex VAT, has a deadline of the end of February and will be funded from the EU Maritime and Fisheries Fund programme for 2014-2020. The municipality is aiming to have the parking area ready during the spring so as to be available for the new tourist season, although the mayor of Kissamos, Giorgos Mylonakis, is as yet unwilling to commit himself to a schedule. “We have done proper studies and worked together with the right people, and so the project is to be tendered in the near future. I believe that after the tender we will be able to draw up contracts and proceed with the work. I don’t know if it will be ready this year. I don’t want to give a schedule, but we will try to have it in place this year,” he told Haniotika Nea.
Once the parking area is in operation, cars will not be allowed to go to the end of the route, but will stop in Kaliviani and passengers will be transferred by bus to where the current car park is. The project as planned will comprise:
– surfacing the parking area
– creation of a drystone perimeter wall
– installation of precast concrete channels for rainwater drainage
– creation of entrance and exit routes with flowerbeds containing plants and shrubs.
The parking, once in operation, will not only reduce the tremendous volume of vehicles which daily crowd onto the Gramvousa peninsula in the summer months, causing a nuisance to visitors and downgrading the environment. It will also result in better control of the flow of visitors and safety will be improved, since accidents have occurred in the past through drivers not knowing the route. (www.haniotika-nea.gr)